


Style Four: Non-Benders

by rewmariewrites



Series: tattoo: the four nations [4]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Tattoos, Badass Sokka (Avatar), Cultural Differences, Cultural References, Non Benders (Avatar), POV Sokka (Avatar), Protective Sokka (Avatar), Supportive Sokka, Tattoos, Toph has a huge puppy-crush on Sokka, cause toph ran away, i don't make the rules i just write the characters, implied Zuko/Katara - Freeform, nonbending tattoos don't have to mean shit, nonbending tattoos dont conform to your RulezTm, or at least he never will, sokka is just like a real sad boy, sokka might have a puppy crush on toph too but i guess well never know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-15
Updated: 2018-10-15
Packaged: 2019-08-02 10:18:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16303286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rewmariewrites/pseuds/rewmariewrites
Summary: “Any time, buddy. Always glad to take the weight of the world off your shoulders, I guess.”





	Style Four: Non-Benders

**Author's Note:**

> author's note: edited 06/03/2019  
> this one really needed it wow, edited for clarity and consistency, content is the same but it reads way nicer

Sokka has made a point of noting the tattoos of non-benders wherever he goes.

Well, okay, maybe he doesn’t make a _point_ of it, but it’s hard not to notice tattoos when everyone you spend all your time with is concerned with their _‘tattoos'_  and the _‘ties to their culture'_  and their _‘responsibility’_ and their _‘burden’_ and their _‘right as benders'._

(Seriously, Katara and Zuko can go _on_ and _on_ about it. Sokka can’t really do or say anything about it, for fear of getting dirty Appa-bath-water to the face, but there _was_ that one time he bribed Toph into earthbending them off a small cliff into an algae-ridden pond, which was _so totally_ _worth_ the shrill lectures and disappointed dad-glares they both got.

Besides, Toph had grinned at him, the first time she’d smiled out of real happiness in _months,_ so it was definitely worth three weeks of scrubbing between Appa’s toes.)

Sokka is a creature of spite if he is anything, and all that talk about ‘bending tattoo traditions’ makes him want to grind his teeth together so hard they snap. So, while they travel, he looks. He watches. He notes which non-benders have tattoos, why they have tattoos, and if their tattoos matter to them in the same way they seem to matter to benders.

It’s not like Sokka doesn’t have his own tattoos: the thin blue lines, three per placement, had been painstakingly pounded into the space between his bottom lip and the tip of his chin, above each eyebrow, around each bicep, and across the back of each hand. Every single line ( _21_ of them, in all) had been done with a sharp piece of bone that was stained with cuttlefish ink and tied to a stick with a thin piece of polar-leopard leather, wielded by his grandmother.

It’s a less dignified process than that whole _no-pain_ waterbending nonsense, but they mark him as a non-bending warrior of the Southern Water Tribe; he was the _only one_ in his tribe with those tattoos after his father left to participate in the war, and that’s pretty cool. It’s _important._

(Just as important as Katara being the last waterbender.)

Honestly, though, the children Sokka left behind were too young and inexperienced to be tattooed, even after Sokka spent the _years_ after his father left trying to teach them what he knew about combat.

The Water Tribe doesn’t just get tattoos for no reason. They need to be _earned,_ and it wasn’t fair to expect children to carry the too-heavy weight of protecting the last vestiges of a culture.

 _(Isn’t he a child? or did his childhood end all those years ago when his father sailed off, just like Katara’s did when their mom died?_ )  

Sometimes he feels like he might understand the pain in the way Aang rubs his hand over his airbending tattoo, looking like a piece of himself was carved out in the shape of that blue arrow, in the shape of his dead teachers and friends.

Sokka feels like he might understand being the last one left, even though Katara is _right there_ beside him and has even more of a claim to that feeling than he does.

At least Katara gets to be a part of something bigger. Even if she’s the last Southern waterbender, she can do things with her body, with the sheer force of her will, that he could never even dream of accomplishing. She is part of a larger group - the benders - and sometimes it feels like he’s just what’s left over.

But _maybe_ he’s not the only one who feels that way. And that’s enough to make him keep watching.

 

The Northern Water Tribe isn’t that different from the Southern Water Tribe, and once Sokka gets over his _fury_ at the way they live so lavishly while his own people are starving because there aren’t enough adults and way too many children, he marvels at it.

Their boats all look the same. Even if they’re all in different shades of blue, and some are bigger than Sokka has ever seen, they’re still the _same._ Their huts and tents are set up the same too, and their children run and scream and play in the same ways. Their children play _exactly_ the same war-games that Sokka taught his kids, back home, before he left.

They use the same bone and stick technique for their tattoos that the Southern Tribe does. They use the same blue inks for the same reasons. They mark their warriors in the same way _he_ is marked.

But there are some differences too.

After he finishes his training, Sokka goes and marks himself in the Northern tradition. He’s trained himself as a Northern warrior, has succeeded as a Northern warrior, so why not? He already has the Southern tattoos, after all, and it’s not like he’s trying to _replace_ them.

The thin lines on his chin are framed by two thick dots, one on each side, perfectly set at the mid-point between bottom lip and chin. Another dot is placed on each temple, and three thick lines of dots circle his forearms, just under the crease of his elbows. Each palm has a large blue-black dot in the middle, and _flying hog-monkeys those ones hurt so bad._

But, even though it hurts, maybe even because it hurts, he’s a warrior. He’s doubly a warrior now, marked by both cultures for anyone to see, proficient enough in his craft ( _yes, Katara, my craft_ ** _is_** _my boomerang, thank you very much, you and WonderBoy can stop_ ** _snickering_** _about it_ ) to be celebrated and honored.

 

But - there’s always a _but_ \- these tattoos still feel a little like an imitation of bending culture. It’s like all those bending traditions about ‘wearing your accomplishments on your skin’ have been filtered down and taken apart until they’re just an echo of what they’re supposed to be, but that echo is still all the non-benders are allowed. It feels a little like a cultural _participation award,_ and that makes Sokka _really_ uncomfortable.

He notices, after a little bit of (desperate) looking for other kinds of tattoos, that some non-benders in the North have small marks in nondescript places. He can’t help but ask - he’s Sokka, after all, and speaking before thinking is kind of what he _does_ \- but most people just give him dirty looks and tell him (sometimes more rudely than he thinks he deserves, he’s just _asking,_ _jeez)_ to mind his own business.

Only one woman, an old, wrinkled woman who sells sparkling shells and jewels by the docks, answers him.

Smiling fondly, she rolls up her thick sleeves and bares the thin skin of her arms to the harsh, cold air. “They’re for those I’ve lost over the years, the ones I’ve cared for so deeply that their loss left a hole in me. That one there - ” she points to a small horizontal line just underneath the crook of her elbow, “ - was for my husband. He loved staring at the line of the horizon, always wanted to visit the South Pole. He would’ve talked your ear off.” She goes on, maybe for an hour, maybe more, maybe less, but Sokka stays there, riveted, until his toes go so numb it feels like they’ve fallen off.

(Tattoos aren’t supposed to be _sentimental_ like this. Tattoos have a _purpose._ They mark you for who you are and what you do, what your use is, and no more. This is… this is something Sokka had never considered. This is just art. This is beautiful, so separated from the utilitarianism of waterbending tattoos, of traditional non-bending Water Tribe tattoos, and Sokka thinks that maybe _this_ is what marking your body should be like.)

When Yue dies (or becomes the moon, _whatever,_ the point is that she’s _gone,_ he _loved her_ and she’s _gone)_ he visits the same woman who gave him his Northern Warrior tattoos, and asks her for two tiny crescent moons, just below where his palms meet his wrists, the points facing the dark ink of his palms. She smiles sadly, shows him the line of small dots inked from the tip of her pinky to the point of her elbow, and refuses his money.

Katara never asks.

Maybe she doesn’t notice. Maybe she does, and just doesn’t care. Maybe she knows, and she cares, but she doesn’t know what to say. It hurts, whatever her reasons are.

Sokka has never been good at asking for affection, so he acts like always: loud and brash and kind of dumb. He only thinks about his tattoos on days where pretending hurts more than feeling does.

 

The Earth Nation has a very different take on tattoos, and the culture shock is honestly… well, it’s _shocking._

Water Tribe warriors have always been men in a way that no one but Katara has ever thought to question, and Sokka knows better by now than to think Katara can’t do anything she sets her mind to, but he hasn’t really ever considered that other girls might have the same strength of will.

It’s not until he gets past his own prejudices about warrior culture and grovels at the feet of the beautiful and fearsome Kiyoshi warriors that they let him into their ranks and he starts to really understand.

“Why should we try to be anything other than what we are? Tattoos are for benders, and they can _keep_ them. Benders left us out of their traditions, _excluded_ us, so we made our own. Avatar Kiyoshi respected that, and painted her face like us to show it. That’s why we still paint our faces like this,” Suki explains one day as Sokka watches her painstakingly apply her makeup - white all the way down past the nape of her neck, red from the outer edge of her eyebrow to almost the bridge of her nose. “Besides, earthbender tattoos aren’t like other nations’ tattoos. The earth decides if you’re worthy, and no one has been for at least a hundred years.”

The Kiyoshi Warriors have made an armour out of their lack of tattoos and use their makeup as war paint. Sokka finds, eventually, that he _likes_ the idea of not having his identity so obviously and permanently attached to him in a way he can’t hide if he needs to.

(When, a week later, Suki presses a pot of makeup into his hand in a shade of dark brown that exactly matches the skin of his face under his tattoos, he smiles so big and so bright he thinks his face might split in half. They kiss for the first time an hour later, and he laughs at her because the makeup she had just helped him apply is rubbed all over her face.

The second time they kiss, while Zuko is attacking the village, she doesn’t have time to do more than smirk and brush a finger against his mouth, which he _just knows_ will be an appalling shade of smudged white.)

Sokka didn’t really get the whole mystical ‘ _the earth decides you’re worthy_ ’ thing, but he didn’t have to. Not then. The Spirit Realm was supposed to be Aang’s thing, after all, even if he wasn’t actually all that good at it.

It wasn’t until Toph came up to Sokka _yearsmonthsdays_ later, asking with a well-suppressed tremor in her voice about the steel under her skin, that he finally _understands._

He is _so_ disappointed in himself when his usual dumbed-down good cheer pours out of his mouth instead of the genuinely excited and supportive speech he wants to give. No matter how much he tries to take it back, he absolutely cannot force himself to explain to her exactly how important and special it is that she has this iron in her veins. Not while it feels like the only true friend he has in the Gaang - the only one who understands feeling excluded by bending traditions and culture - is leaving him for something better.

_(Just like his father had, and Katara, and Yue, and -)_

(It’s one of the greatest regrets in his life that he could never make himself tell her how special she was, even after the war was well and truly over.)

 

While no one in the Earth Nation had tattoos, almost everyone in the Fire Nation does.

Sokka _freaks out_ every time they arrive in a new town, so much so that they actually have to avoid going into the bigger towns for a while because Sokka just can’t help but ask people about them, which always blows their cover.

They’re just so _colourful!_ All the reds and blues and greens, even _purples_ \- Water Tribe tattoos have never been anything but shades of blue, pretty but monochromatic, and Sokka _drools_ over the idea of having all that colour on his skin.

Literally, he drools. Katara made fun of him for it for _weeks_ , but he could only tangentially make himself care, because he was too busy planning _all the art._

(Even though he likes the idea of red, he’s Water Tribe through-and-through, so he’d probably stick to boring-old-blue, but it would still be _so cool_ because he could have a _dragon_ -)

“That’s hilarious! This _common immigrant_ thinks that he can get a blue dragon tattoo! As if he could _ever_ master lightning.” A fancy-looking woman behind him whisper-shouts to her companions. They’re at a tea-shop in a city somewhere in the middle of Fire Country, on one of the few days where they have enough money to treat themselves, and Sokka suddenly wishes he were an earthbender so he could make the ground rise up and swallow him.

“Dragons are only for master firebenders and royalty,” Zuko explains later, well after they’ve left the town behind and the sun has gone down past the mountains. Katara, Toph, and Aang sleep peacefully, draped all over one-another, on the other side of the campfire. Zuko always sleeps a little farther away from the campfire than he probably should, but no one has the heart to confront him about it, not even Sokka.

(Being permanently scarred by your father’s firebending is probably enough fire for _anyone’s_ lifetime. Sokka shows he understands by setting up his bed next to Zuko’s every night without fail - after growing up in the South Pole, nothing will ever be cold again, so it’s no skin off his nose.

By the way Zuko stares moodily into the distance every night as Sokka sets up his bedroll, Sokka thinks Zuko appreciates the gesture.)

“Non-bending tattoos mimic ours,” Zuko continues, “but they’re usually lesser spirits or stylized animals. All the colours are fair game, but dragons have been pretty much monopolized by firebenders. I think it’s _stupid,_ but that’s what we were taught.”

 

Sokka doesn’t bring up tattoos - specifically, that blue dragon he’s been dreaming about for _weeks_ \- with Piandao until after their final battle. He doesn’t feel comfortable asking until after he’s crafted his own sword _(out of meteorite!),_ learned all he can from Piandao, and confessed to being an imposter from the Southern Water Tribe.

Piandao just smiles. “I have broken thousands of years of precedent and tradition by taking you, a member of the Water Tribe, as my student. I don’t see the harm in breaking a few more so you can get a tattoo or two, if you so wish.”

So Piandao finds him a trustworthy artist, helps him create the design (because even after all that calligraphy training, Sokka is _awful_ at drawing), and sits with him for a total of eight hours while the tattoo artist - with his lion-vulture-talon needle - inks a blue dragon into his skin.

It twists _entirely_ around his right leg. It’s so large that the tip of its tail curls around his ankle bone, and its nose nudges against the bone of his hip.

At the end of _that_ particular torture (which was _so much worse_ than _any_ of the sword training, _even_ the calligraphy, _even_ his palm tattoos, Sokka takes it all back he _hates_ tattoos) Piandao takes off his left shoe.

Which, okay, sure, sometimes Sokka doesn’t like wearing shoes either, but taking off shoes _right at this moment exactly_ seems _maybe_ just _a little bit_ strange.

“Sokka, _please_ be quiet,” Piandao says, and _oops, right, sorry._ “Sokka, I would be honored if you would consider receiving this particular tattoo. I cannot tell you what it means just yet, but if you ever need assistance on your journey it’ll be a useful resource. The Avatar will always find friends in the Order of the White Lotus.”

A white lotus sits, pretty and innocuous, on the thin skin of the top of Piandao’s left foot.

Sokka _maybe, possibly_ rolls his eyes so hard it makes his head hurt. “Then why not just give _Aang_ the tattoo?”

“Because _he_ did not _earn it,”_ is Piandao’s sharp reply. _“You_ did, and I will not have you dishonor yourself, or me, by suggesting that someone who has not earned the trust of the White Lotus should have our symbol _permanently etched upon their body."_

And well, hell, when you put it like _that_ , how can a guy refuse?

So, instead of one new tattoo, Sokka gets two. He limps around like a useless lump for two weeks afterwards; the white lotus sits _(so_ un)comfortably on the top of Sokka’s left foot, and the dragon wrapped around his right leg makes his muscles twitch involuntarily all through the healing process. It’s inconvenient, and it hurts, and it _itches,_ but they mean something. They’re a rebellion against traditional bending cultures, and they’re _everything_ he could possibly want.

(Still, no one asks. Not even Toph. _Why are you walking like you got trampled by a komodo rhino?_ they could ask, or, _how did your training with Piandao go?_ or even, _where were you for the last three weeks?_ But they don’t. And that’s fine. That’s _fine.)_

Aang comes up to him at some point, years after the war has been won and Republic City has been built, when they’re all respectable adults who have responsibilities and duties and burdens that are so much more than any tattoo could encompass.

Aang comes up to Sokka, who leaning out over his hotel balcony in the middle of Republic City, and he says, “I’m sorry.”

“What did you do? Did you piss Katara off again? Aw, _hell,_ man, you have crappy timing - we have that Nations conference _tomorrow._ I thought you two decided not to fight anymore after you broke up?”

Aang just shakes his head and laughs, scrubbing a little at his beard with the heel of a hand. “No, I didn’t piss her off. Well - I don’t _think_ I did. Honestly, I probably have, somehow. With a temper like that she’s _much_ better suited to the Fire Nation than she ever was to an Air Temple. But I’m not here about Katara.”

“Well, what then? Are you going to start another war?” Sokka has a thought and grins suddenly, wolfishly. “I know we technically _like_ Zuko, but he could _always_ use a good asskicking.”

“ _No_ , no. I mean, I _agree_ , but that’s not it either.” Aang seems to take a moment to steel himself, looking out over the balcony towards the ocean before looking back at Sokka. “I’m sorry I never acknowledged you properly while we were growing up and on the run. We were both collecting tattoos, trying to make ourselves into adults by covering our skin with our responsibilities, but I never stopped to acknowledge that your accomplishments were just as important to our success as mine were. I _knew_ it, but I never _said_ it, because I thought you knew it too. And I’m realizing that you didn’t. So, I’m sorry.”

Aang is stares at Sokka the whole time he’s speaking. Sokka knows this, but he can’t tear his own eyes away from Aang’s hands, where his fingers are stained dirt-black. They’re even darker than Sokka’s hands.

(Sokka has a sudden, strange urge to find Toph.)

“I’ve been thinking about it a lot these past few years,” Aang continues, probably picking up on the way Sokka has kinda forgotten how to breathe, “and I think I’ve come to a conclusion. Non-benders are the only people I know who collect tattoos like I do - like an Avatar is _supposed_ to. You, _specifically,_ collect tattoos like I do. You went from nation to nation, place to place, watching and waiting and allowing them to mark your body as their own. Or, at least, that’s how it felt when _I_ was doing it - my experience isn’t universal, I know, but it’s the only one I have. Maybe _you_ were marking your body for something else, but _I_ was marking my body for _them._ It was like I was a part of all of the cultures, and none of the cultures, and like I was making my _own_ culture, all at the same time. And _you were making that culture, too!_ You have all of the tattoos of all of the nations, except for the Air Nomads because I’m the only one left and I don’t know how to give tattoos. But the thing is, you’ve _made them into something new_ _._ All I can do is preserve and respect the historical purpose of these art styles but you - _you_ can make it into something different. And you _have_.”

“Aang, I don’t think I know what you mean,” Sokka manages to say around a lump in his throat that feels suspiciously like either tears or a purple pentapus.

Aang just chuckles and rubs his dark fingers against his eyes. He looks about as tired as Sokka suddenly feels. “It’s okay, Sokka. I got a little carried away. It’s just - you’re the _glue_ . You’ve always been the glue of the Gaang, and I think I’ve _finally_ figured out that non-benders are the glue to the Gaang that is the bending world, not me. Which _really_ takes a lot of pressure off of me, so thanks.”

 

“Any time, buddy. Always glad to take the weight of the world off your shoulders, I guess.”

**Author's Note:**

> so you guys are REALLY REALLY great and I appreciate you a lot and I know I never respond to comments but I read them all and they make me very happy so thanks to all of you for continuing to read my stuff
> 
> you can find me on tumblr at rewmariewrites.tumblr.com! 
> 
> I would love to hear your prompts (and also if any of you want to draw any of the tattoos so far i would love that omg pls tag it with #tattoo: the four nations if you don't wanna send it directly to me). All fic updates are posted under the tag #progress check
> 
> I've hit the end of what I've written so far but I still want to do at least one more part so I will try my best to have another chapter by next week


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